TWO ON COUNCIL CALL FOR ACTION ON PORT PICKS

San Diego 
City Councilmen Kevin Faulconer and Scott Sherman, on the losing side of a City Hall tussle over port appointments, are urging their colleagues to take swift action within 30 days to fill the vacancies so the city has its full complement of Port Commission votes.

The two Republicans stood outside Tuesday’s Port Commission hearing to emphasize that decisions were being made while two of San Diego’s three seats on the seven-member panel remain unfilled.

“While the City Council is talking about a plan for selecting Port Commission nominees, the actual Port Commission is discussing the Port Master Plan — the blueprint for our waterfront — right now,” Faulconer said. “We need action.”

The City Council appointed attorney Rafael Castellanos and businessman Marshall Merrifield to the commission last month, but Mayor Bob Filner vetoed the selections, saying he wanted to reshape the appointment process to hold future commissioners more accountable to city leaders. The council voted 5-3 Monday to override the veto, but it failed because six votes were required.

The seats will remain open for the time being until a new process is created or council District 4 has a new representative to break the logjam. The District 4 special election is next month, but a runoff is almost certain.

The council’s rules committee, led by Democrat Sherri Lightner, has scheduled a March 6 workshop on revamping the appointment process. With that in mind, Faulconer and Sherman urged council President Todd Gloria, who joined them in trying to override the veto, to schedule a vote on the port appointments for March 11. That would require council members to submit nominees immediately to be considered under whatever new rules are established.

Sherman said the projects will move ahead “with or without San Diego.“